Aklima Khatun, 35, and her husband Billal Hossain, 45 – residents of the capital’s Badda area – went to the Mouchak market for Eid shopping on Wednesday. They bought two tolas of gold and were left with Tk95,000 cash with which they wanted to shop more.
After iftar, when they were about to go for some more shopping, they met another couple in the market. The second couple offered them chotpoti – a popular spicy snack – from a roadside vendor. Soon after eating the chotpoti, Aklima and Billal started feeling dizzy. Hours later, they discovered themselves in the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH); and all their belongings gone.
The Aklima-Billal couple is a classic example of victims of a “dope gang.”
On Monday, Raju Hamid, senior reporter of daily Amader Shomoy, was walking along a street at Bangshal in Old Dhaka after iftar. Suddenly, a group of three-four men approached him and greeted him saying “As-salamualaikum” in the traditional Islamic way. All of a sudden, Raju discovered himself in a middle of a group of muggers, who robbed him off his laptop and camera.
Groups such as the one that robbed Raju, are known as “salam (greeting) gangs.”
These are just two of the many more cases that have been reported in the recent weeks, especially during the first 10 days of the fasting month of Ramadan.
According to law enforcers, who claimed that they have strengthened vigilance, such crimes go on the rise before every Eid.
The country’s economy see a surge in activities with the biggest shopping season of the year. The shopping mall-heavy areas see huge crowds of shoppers, many of whom come from outside the capital.
Because they are less used to the bumps of city life, more often than not they fall hapless prey to muggers and criminals.
According to the register book of DMCH, at least 141 victims of “dope gangs” were admitted over the last one month. At least 80 of them were admitted in the first 10 days of Ramadan only. There are other gangs with names sounding as weird as their modus operandi – spitting gangs, ointment gangs, and so on.
Police said other than the professional gangs of criminals, many seasonal gangs have popped up in the capital to cash in on the Eid shopping spree. There are around 30 such groups active in Dhaka and interestingly, some of them have women and children as members.
The sensational part of this is that these gangs even have university and college students as well.
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of Detective Branch of Police, said a special security plan had been laid out for keeping a leash on these criminal gangs which he could not disclose to this reporter for strategy reasons.
